After evaluating 3,000 participants from 79 countries, Jessica Pryce-Jones and her team of researchers compiled the following figures. Pryce-Jones is the author of Happiness at Work and CEO of iOpener.

“The happiest employees are 180% more energized than their less content colleagues, 155% happier with their jobs, 150% happier with life, 108% more engaged and 50% more motivated. Most staggeringly, they are 50% more productive too.”

The researchers found that unhappy workers spent only 40% of their week actually ‘doing their job’, while happy workers were engaged in work-related 80% of their week.

Says Pryce-Jones,

“This means they are putting in only two days a week of real [work], while their happiest colleagues are doing four.”

And, the happiest workers took 66% less sick leave.

“But I don’t feel like smiling,” you say.

Just do it.

It is easier to control your actions than your feelings. Actions are the result or consequence of choice. You act on what you choose.

So, if you choose to smile, a smile will appear on your face, regardless of how you feel.

And if you practice long enough, smiling becomes a habit. You become an expert at it, and you reap its rewards.

Abraham Lincoln remarked, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

“But what’s that got to do with business?” you ask.

A Chinese proverb gives the answer: “A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.”

7 Reasons to Smile

Your smile is the messenger of your goodwill—it brightens the lives of all who see it.

To someone who has seen a dozen people frown, scowl and turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds.

When someone is under pressure at work, at home or in the supermarket, your smile helps them realize that all is not hopeless—there is joy in the world.

Your smile enriches those who receive it, without impoverishing you who give it—it costs nothing, but creates much.

Your smile is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad and Nature’s best antidote for trouble.

A smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it is of no earthly good to anybody until it is given away.

Nobody needs your smile as much as those who have none left to give—be generous.

(Adapted from How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie)

I am determined to be successful and prosperous.

Seeing the ROI on a smile, I’m on a mission.

I am collecting as many smiles as I can every day.

How?

With a cheery smile, a friendly greeting, a sincere compliment, some light-hearted humor.

The response is delightful, the reward immeasurable.

Shalom.

Challenge: Make it your mission to give away and collect as many smiles as you can every day.